


widdershins

by tin_girl



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, briefly, character study of a sort, introspective, not sure if teen and up audiences applies when the show itself is 18+ BUT, there's nothing too explicit here apart from some purple prose blood metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23864005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tin_girl/pseuds/tin_girl
Summary: A forever later, Will is trying to be normal for the very last time, white picket fence and no drops of blood soiling the paint, except once, he almost demands to see Hannibal just to ask him what he’s doing to Will in his mind palace. The only reason why he doesn’t is that he’s scared that Hannibal, lost in the halls of Louvre, isn't doing anything to him at all, not even there, not even inside his own thoughts.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	widdershins

**Author's Note:**

> this is just pretentious idiocy about Will being obsessed with that very first messed-up clock and, naturally, with Hannibal, too. I regret nothing.

but when the time came, nothing could stop me, i tell you: // i made a living of my death

~Toi Derricotte, _Answers from Anne_

_We could disappear now_ , and Will wonders if Hannibal can smell his heartbeat on him.

 _Tonight_ , and he thinks _yes_.

 _Feed your dogs_ , and Hannibal taps an erratic rhythm on the arm of his chair with his finger, only he’s really tapping Will’s pulse, and Will’s pulse is all his.

 _Leave a note for Alana and never see her or Jack again_ , and they’re so close to each other, but Will _misses_ him. Even if they’ll— even if they’d – misses him.

 _Almost polite_ , and Will remembers what it felt like, eating that ortolan and not having to shield his face from God (Hannibal) from Jack (Hannibal) from himself (Hannibal).

 _Then this would be our last supper_ , only no, no, no, not like this, fuck this, Will would eat anything or eat nothing if it meant— _Not like this._

 _Of this life_ , and Will doesn’t close his eyes and doesn’t imagine being reborn, because once he sees it, he won’t keep himself from killing himself into whatever Hannibal (he) wants him(self) to be.

When he leaves, he stands outside the door and breathes and breathes and doesn’t breathe and breathes, stops, restarts, presses his knuckles to the door, and then walks away.

*

He calls Hannibal and wonders what would happen if Hannibal never picked up.

He thinks that _he_ would happen, rushing to Hannibal and killing and killing and killing, not who he should, but who he’d want to, and he would paint himself red so Hannibal would think it lovely.

He calls Hannibal, and he doesn’t break the phone. He only rebreaks everything he’s ever thought about himself.

*

Every time he looks at a clock, he thinks about Hannibal, so he doesn’t look at clocks.

Every time he looks at a clock, he thinks about Hannibal, so he does nothing but look at clocks.

He builds a boat because that’s what he’s good at, because that’s what he knows, because fuck everything and at least wood is easy and— he has splinters of Hannibal inside him, and Jack still dreams of digging them out of Will’s skin, doesn’t see that it’s grown back over them, no scar, like a meant-to-be.

He builds a boat, and he doesn’t look at clocks, and he looks at clocks, and it’s never 7:16 but it’s always 7:16, and whenever it’s (not) 7:16 Will hears the distant ringing of a phone inside his head and waits for a hello. There is something sweet about the wait, which is just as well because inside Will’s head, the phone rings forever.

(He doesn’t care if somewhere in Europe, Hannibal’s 7:16s are good, or bad, or evil, he only cares that they’re not about him and how very _wrong_.)

*

They start with a phone call and they end with a phone call but he’ll restart them again, he _will_.

*

In some fucked up way, he loved Hannibal back when he was imprisoned, loved how Hannibal knew Will wasn’t a killer even if he wouldn’t admit it, how he must have seen what Will was and wasn’t, and when you think about it (Will doesn’t), when you really think about it (Will thinks of nothing else) all they are is bad timing after bad timing.

7:16 again, and he draws a clock, hopes it won’t be right.

*

A forever later, Will is trying to be normal for the very last time, white picket fence and no drops of blood soiling the paint, except once, he almost demands to see Hannibal just to ask him what he’s doing to Will in his mind palace. The only reason why he doesn’t is that he’s scared that Hannibal, lost in the halls of Louvre, isn't doing anything to him at all, not even there, not even inside his own thoughts. 338 000 works of art just in that one museum and Will feels cold to his very marrow.

(Still, Hannibal does things to him inside _Will_ ’s thoughts, evil, bad, and good, and there, in Will’s consciousness, Hannibal’s 7:16s are always his.)

*

He has never-ending conversations with Hannibal in his head.

They’re standing in the same room, enough distance between them that Hannibal couldn’t touch him, not enough distance between them for Hannibal not to smell him.

“You want to kill me to see if you’d survive the lack of me,” is what Will says, and it’s 7:15.

“I’d survive it,” Hannibal insists, pupils like snuffed out candle wicks, because he’s of the devil, because Will doesn’t reflect there, only longs to be there, in the dark and in the quiet.

“I know,” Will says, 7:16. “You still want to see.”

*

He should have known that Hannibal would tug at that noose.

After all, Will put it around his neck all by himself and delighted in the strain.

Another imaginary conversation:

“What, where, when?”

_anything, anywhere, whenever_

“Everything, everywhere, always.”

*

Sometimes he remembers kissing Alana, and fishing, and throwing bloodied shirts away instead of carefully washing out the stains.

He knows now that Hannibal’s made a place for him inside his head, and is jealous of himself, wants to live there, wants to _see._

*

This is what Will knows: Mischa, long ago, and the world happened to Hannibal just the once. After, he wouldn’t let it. After, it was Hannibal Lecter who kept happening to the world.

*

Everyone is ready to admit it now, how he had Hannibal in his head.

They’re not quite as eager to admit that he still has him there.

It’s no mind palace. It’s two armchairs, half a fucked-up clock, and one almost-love. When Will thinks of what Hannibal is to him, he thinks of pressing the pad of his finger to the tip of a knife, not drawing blood but about to.

He thinks of pressing his fingernail to the tip of a knife, too, no blood and oh, what hunger, what pleading from somewhere inside him. He thinks of _Guernica_ , that mess of miserable shapes, and understands why Hannibal is in love with blood, and understands why Hannibal is in love with himself, and even understands why Hannibal is in love with him.

He thinks of Georgia Madchen.

He thinks of Beverly Katz.

He thinks of Abigail Hobbs.

He starts his fall to the bottom of Hannibal Lecter anyway.

*

Imaginary, too, this:

“What if it happened the other way around? What if I caught you first, and then befriended you?”

“Would you befriend me, knowing what I was?”

And Will says, “I want you to draw me a clock.”

*

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, they’re about to kill together, and Hannibal’s always liked expensive wine.

Will is years too late, except time is but Play-Doh.

He doesn’t mention after because he can’t wait for now.

*

He’ll imagine Jack, after. He’ll imagine him rubbing his eyes. He’ll imagine him remembering his wife. He’ll imagine him regretting Will like one would a stillbirth, half grief, half you shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

He’ll think of him whenever he’ll see a postcard, and he’ll even buy one, but he’ll never post it.

He’ll stare at computer screens, reading TattleCrime and laughing at how Freddie had been right all along.

He’ll keep the postcard on him for a very long time.

He’ll have imaginary conversations with himself about how he sinned himself right into hell and liked it there, who would have thought?

*

He tells Hannibal that it’s beautiful, and he doesn’t just mean the blood.

*

It’s not 7:16 when he opens his eyes.

He has salt at the back of his throat, blood under his nails, and Hannibal leaning over him, because, after all this time, he’s killed himself alive at last.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 Please let me know if you have any thoughts, I live for comments :,) I hope this wasn't completely terrible. I've seen this series 3 times now but the thought of writing fanfic about it gives me impostor syndrome cause the show's just insanely beautiful and I barely even speak fluent English lmao 
> 
> And I'm on tumblr if anyone's interested, @yoyointhegarden


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